Opinion 鈥� Page 380
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Comment
Just plane wrong
It鈥檚 easy to portray Tamsin Omond as childish (27 March, page 42), but setting her against an ageing politician (whose age I noted wasn鈥檛 published) just doesn鈥檛 work
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Comment
The noble game
I am fixture secretary for Peper Harow Cricket Club, and we are desperately trying to raise funds to complete phase two of our pavilion
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Correction
Due to a production error, the photographs of Andy Ritchie, global board director of Ryder Levett Bucknall, and Phil Dalglish, Saudi Arabia director for Buro Happold, were inadvertently transposed in the article 鈥淢ake a wish鈥� (9 April)
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CommentHansom: Bitter pills
There鈥檚 been much that鈥檚 hard to swallow of late in the world of construction, whether it be workers standing idle, a critic鈥檚 harsh words, a questionable quiz defeat or a whole sheep鈥檚 head
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CommentHuman beans
Our percentage fee culture treats architects and engineers like commodities and actually pays them less the better their designs work. Time for a rethink
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CommentWonders & blunders
Erica Wagner chooses two avant-garde icons for us, one of them a triumph of American engineering, the other an Anglo-Italian blemish on the Beaubourg
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CommentIs the housing market turning?
This is, of course, the question that everybody wants to know the answer to. So let鈥檚 put all the evidence together and work out what it tells us...
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CommentPlaying golf with Superman: Multiple adjudications
If you had to decide a dispute involving 51,000 job orders in 28 days, would you need to wear your underpants outside your clothes? Well, the following case put this to the test
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Comment
Lip service won't do: Discrimination in construction
Now there鈥檚 even more reason to make clear your commitment to equality and diversity: if you don鈥檛, you won鈥檛 secure those multimillion-pound public sector contracts
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CommentI beg to differ: Response to Rupert Choat on the Construction Act
Rupert Choat has many useful things to say about the proposed amendments to the Construction Act. But in his criticism of payment security, he鈥檚 just plain wrong
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CommentApprenticeships: has the system collapsed?
Apprentices are one of the main victims of the recession, but if they suffer today, it鈥檚 a sure thing that the rest of the industry will suffer tomorrow. So how can they be saved?
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CommentAbout all we could hope for
The Budget might not have been all that the industry would have wished for, but for a country facing its biggest public debt since the war, it was about what you鈥檇 expect
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CommentWeb poll: The Chelsea Barracks furore
As Prince Charles pooh-poohed Lord Rogers鈥� design and proposed Quinlan Terry instead, nearly 1,000 readers rushed to our online poll to tell us which they prefer. The results so far? Terry 67%, Rogers 33%
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Comment
NSCC survey of specialists highlights strategic industry problems
I was passed a draft copy of the latest state of trade survey undertaken by the specialist contractors' body NSCC. It covers the first quarter of this year and tells pretty much the story you'd expect - orders and inquiries down and firms working at lower and lower capacity.It is, ...
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Comment
Budget 2009: Draw your own conclusions, if you can
"I can't quite decide whether it was smoke or mirrors," said KBC Peel Hunt analyst Robin Hardy in summing up yesterday's Budget.Most observers said the Chancellor's economic growth forecasts were chipper to say the least and when asked to pick out the positives, there was generally an uneasy silence at ...
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Comment
Welcome to 星空传媒's expert economists
Welcome to 星空传媒s new economic panel. We have assembled a panel of experts to help make sense of these fast moving and uncertain economic times. They will regularly comment on economic developments as they unfold and give an insight into what these might mean whether it's and event as big ...
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Comment
Budget 2009: initial thoughts
Budget day as ever was interesting and obviously, the devil is in the detail, especially when it is bad news. However, the Chancellor's speech and the Budget document provide us with some initial thoughts.The macro figures are as bad as expected and potentially worse; 拢175bn public borrowing in 2009/10 and ...
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Comment
Brace for public investment cuts
Three things stood out in yesterday's Budget: First, the shocking state of UK public finances, second, the Chancellor's gambling on a very rapid rebound of the economy to make his numbers add up and third, that the construction industry will almost desperately hope for private sector demand to return by ...
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Comment
What's in the budget for construction?
Snap analysis immediately after the event tends to be prone to knee-jerk reaction, but the thing that immediately springs to mind about this budget is the optimism regarding GDP growth in 2010 in 2011. While I wouldn't neccessarily argue with a 3.5% decline for this year, 1.25% growth for 2010 ...